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“You look better in black,”
My last words with my father before the Battle of Aretia were spoken in anger, because he was sending me away for my own safety. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for that, but I like to think he forgives me.
The only signet more terrifying than an inntinnsic is a truth-sayer. And yet we let them live.
“I’m not wandering, Violet. I’m exactly where I need to be.”
“I know,” Liam says gently. “But you’re staying strong. I’m so proud of you.”
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper to Liam. I don’t care that I’m far gone enough to hallucinate, that my brain is using Liam as a crutch as long as he stays, as long as I’m not alone. “I won’t. I swear.”
It’s been my honor. Liam’s last words to me.
“I’m so sorry I failed you.” “You never failed me. Not once,” he whispers, shaking his head. “We pulled you into our war. If anyone’s sorry, it’s me.”
“You’re all right.” Liam steadies my shoulder. “I’ll be right here. I’m not going to leave you.”
“There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?”
“I don’t give a fuck. We’ll figure it out once we’re there.”
“Then I’ll have everything I need.” He lowers his face, leaning in so he’s all I see, all I feel. “I will happily watch Aretia burn to the fucking ground again if it means you live.”
everything to protect his home. “I do. I’m sorry if you expect me to do the noble thing. I warned you. I’m not sweet or soft or kind, and you fell anyway. This is what you get, Violet—me. The good, the bad, the unforgivable. All of it. I am yours.”
“You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side. It’s a damned good thing that ...
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“But he didn’t break you, Violet,” Liam says softly from the corner of the room, and my chest squeezes tight as he takes a step back toward the shadows. Then another.
“And I want them all to know you’re mine.”
“Alive and strong and mine.”
“Let us watch our father’s heart give out because your death broke him?”
“Is it onyx?”
“You aren’t where I left you, Violence.”
“I sure as hell hadn’t sat by your bedside for three days, knowing my life—if it even existed beyond yours—would mean nothing without you in it.”
“Of losing you? More like terrified. And when Sgaeyl told me Tairn was headed this direction I nearly lost my fucking mind.”
“That dress…” His gaze sweeps over me and heats with an intensity that makes my cheeks flush, my pulse race. “You’re playing dirty, Violence.”
“I can’t fucking breathe when you’re in danger,
“If you ever want to have words about why I severed that alliance, then you come for me. Violet is beyond your reach. If you so much as look her direction with anything but the utmost kindness and respect, I’ll kill you without a second thought and let Syrena take her place as your heir. Do you understand me?”
“We’ve been killing each other for centuries, and we’re supposed to what…weave flowers into each other’s hair and confess our deepest, darkest secrets all because they gave us a luminary and hiked a cliff?”
“Scratch her eyes out,” Andarna suggests. “Really. The eyes are the softest tissue. Just jab your thumbs in there—” “Andarna! Use some common sense,” Tairn snaps. “The kneecaps are a much easier target.”
Defeating a dark wielder begins with knowing where they rank in age and experience. Initiates have reddish rings to their eyes that come and go depending on how often they drain. Asims’ eyes fluctuate in degrees of red, and their veins distend when riled. Sages’—those responsible for initiates—eyes are permanently red, their veins perpetually distended toward their temples, expanding with age. Mavens—their generals—have never been captured for examination.
That’s one of the many reasons I will always choose you.”
“My house. My chair. My woman.”
“I don’t like you thinking you’re not the center of my fucking world,
“Nothing you could ever do would be unforgivable to me.”
“You are the first and only woman I’ve ever loved.”
“Violet, you were just in my thoughts. You know I think you’re perfect, even when you frustrate the shit out of me.
Xaden’s, and his arm wraps around my back and pulls me closer like it’s a reflex, like this is the way we’ll sleep for the next fifty years. I settle in against his warmth and lay my head on his chest, above the most comforting rhythm in the world besides Tairn’s and Andarna’s wingbeats—Xaden’s heart.
“All I want is you!”
“Because I let you live long enough for us to fall in love,” he says. “Without that deal, gods know what I would have done in my need for revenge. Ask me why I don’t regret it. Ask me about the first time I saw you. Ask me about the moment I almost killed you despite the deal and decided not to. Ask me why. Ask me something! Fight back like you would have done last year before I broke your trust. Stop being so scared of the answers or waiting for me to give them to you. Demand the truth! I need you to love all of me—not just what you decide to see.”
“Less than a minute,” Xaden whispers as Sgaeyl moves toward him—toward us. “That’s how long it took for you to fall out of love with me.”
“I love you,”
“Even if you believe nothing else I ever say, please believe that.”
“I love you,” I whisper. “You could throw my entire world into upheaval, and I would still love you. You could keep secrets, run a revolution, frustrate the shit out of me, probably ruin me, and I would still love you. I can’t make it stop. I don’t want to. You’re my gravity. Nothing in my world works without you.”
“But I know I can’t live without you, so trust me when I say there’s a very real, very loud part of me screaming to carry you out of here and fly for Aretia.”
Though there is some debate, it is greatly believed that turning venin heightens one of the dark wielder’s senses. It is this scholar’s belief that the one responsible for the death of King Grethwild developed keener eyesight. For not even the best of His Majesty’s royal fliers could see through the darkness the venin hid within to slay our beloved king.
“I love you. The world does not exist for me beyond you.”
I couldn’t tell you that the last time we flew into a fight, and I should have.”
“Even Malek himself couldn’t keep me from you.”
You’re going to love Violet. She’s smart and stubborn. Reminds me a lot of you, actually. You just have to remember when you meet her: she’s not her mother.
“You are my home.
“You must save yourself,” Tairn demands. “I chose you not as my next, but as my last, and should you fall, then I will follow.”
“And I’ll get to see him soon.”
